Sonny Clark - Fragile Virtuoso

by Derek Ansell

270 pages, Paperback

Published August 23, 2024

About the author

Derek Ansell was a British novelist and biographer.

Reviews

[John Gillies · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is an interesting biography of one of the lesser-known jazz piano greats. However, the book suffers from a major flaw. The book is presented in the present, rather than past tense. For example, "Clark arrives at the session and shakes hands with the others." While there is nothing objectionable to that approach to biography, he then repeatedly tells us what Clark is thinking. "He was pleased how his solo had gone ..." "As he lay in bed trying to fall asleep, he thought about ..." While it is *possible* that the author has sources for each of these statements, he nowhere indicates that he is doing anything other than speculating. I blame his editor for not having stepped in earlier in the process and forced him to footnote the source each time he purported to tell us what Clark was thinking.

I would have given the book three stars if the author had stuck to the facts as he knew them.